Traditional Deficit Republicanism

Harry Mark: ‘In a follow-up to what you wrote about Republican deficits recently I ask: Isn’t it time to begin calling it Traditional Deficit Republicanism? A generation has grown up under GOP borrow-and-spend. Time to re-frame the debate, eh?’

☞ You know, if we were borrowing to ‘wire the last mile’ with fiber optic cable, a program whose implications could conceivably rival those of the Interstate Highway System decades ago . . . or if we were borrowing to rebuild our schools and invest in our children through smaller class sizes and richer programs . . . or if we were borrowing in a grand international Manhattan Project / Marshall Plan to find effective ways to move large chunks of the Third World into the modern economy over the next couple of decades . . . then it wouldn’t bother me, because this is borrowing with a potentially huge pay-off.

Instead, our friends in the Republican Party borrow to lower taxes on the best off. They did it from 1980 to 1992 and added $3 trillion to our national debt; they’re doing it again now. What kind of vision is this? So Harry may be on to something: Traditional Deficit Republicanism.